The Role of E-Commerce in Agriculture Digitization Promoting Rural Development in Rwanda

Progress of ICT Application in Agriculture

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UNFAO), launched one of the most prominent project “Agriculture Services and Digital Inclusion in Africa” to accelerate digital inclusion in Agriculture sector, Rwanda was granted the opportunity of being among the pioneer among African nations. This initiative had in its root phase creating Apps where the target was to enrich the farmer with all maximum information regarding their farm and livestock, where four aspects mainly had to be achieved; Cure and feed your Livestock, E-nutrifood, weather and crop calendar and finally the Agri Market Place the cure and feed your livestock provided all the features allowing rural farmers actively verify both feeding and health of their livestock, focusing on their syndromic events, animal health care systems and feedings. Besides this, its link farmers with lab of soil and water analysis. E-nutrifood is another app which enabled farmer to produce high nutrition food which turns to improve diet, both achieving better food security and nutrition. The E-nutrifood extended its service on providing information of producer and consumer, sharing the requisition of both party in terms of quality and quantity needed. Weather and crop calendar was also introduced, this app gave based on meteorological information, by providing early warnings of extreme weather events, it also provides crop calendar adapting to local demand and rainfall and irrigation needs. Finally, the initiative provided the Agri market place where a farmer was able to check out the market price of his livestock instantly and able to make decision where and when to sell. This project was successfully implemented, though some drawback were highlighted and discussed in this paper.

Thriving E-Commerce in Rural Areas through Esoko, AMIS

The government of Rwanda has done a lot of improvement to boost e-commerce usability, the ministry of agriculture and animal resources (MINAGRI) launched the Esoko an online platform which assisted rural farmers being connected directly to their vendors but also get connected in between themselves, Esoko was introduced to manage the market price information for multiple markets and commodities, the introduction of Agricultural Management Information System (AMIS) took control as well, by harmonizing different information’s and knowledge across the sector[7,8].

Alibaba Introduce the First Electronic World Trading Platform (Ewtp) in Africa

In 2018 Alibaba group from China headed with Jack Ma launched the first electronic world trading platform designed to level the playing field for small and medium-sized companies, this electronic platform has made it possible for a small farmer benefit from globalization [9]. A sample survey conducted by Alibaba group showcase, revealed an increase of $4 was collected by farmers from the normal interest covered before using this platform. Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao platform, sold lots of Rwandan’s coffee brands in foreigner market especially in China. The most sought are; gorilla coffee, West hills coffee and Land of a thousand hills coffee, all these brands pick the top selling price, being as well one of the most craved coffee on the platform. Besides being one of the best in terms of quality a sample survey collected by the research here in Beijing, where 100 customers whom tested the Gorilla coffee, above 80 percent of them ranked it as their best brand in terms of quality, all this made possible by an effective shipment facility carried out by the Rwandair cargo flight, compared to different coffee brands on the platform.

Challenges of E-commerce and Agriculture Digitization in Rwanda

Rwanda has done a lot of improvement to digitalized agriculture and increase the e-commerce compared to many decades ago, but some problems are still presenting in this platform. Bellow diagram summarize what has been achieved and associated challenges.

Figure1: Current E-commerce and Agriculture digitization in Rwanda, associated with challenges

Nonetheless, above challenges were remarkable, the group’s leaders of the farming association, 90% were skilled with reading and writing, having smartphones, with a permanent internet facility and a satisfactory ICT skill. This challenge was no longer a barrier, because a farmer could easily get information of his livestock and farm, also being able to navigate the market through an E-commerce platform through his group leader of the farming association.

Figure 2: Farmer Statistics, Farmer Awareness to Agriculture Digitization Rate

Nonetheless, above challenges were remarkable, the group’s leaders of the farming association, 90% were skilled with reading and writing, having smartphones, with a permanent internet facility and a satisfactory ICT skill. This challenge was no longer a barrier, because a farmer could easily get information of his livestock and farm, also being able to navigate the market through an E-commerce platform through his group leader of the farming association.

Figure 3: Final Consumer Awareness to E-Commerce Facility and Adoption Rate.

Supply Chain Barriers

Most of the E-commerce platform requires a controlled and maintained supply chain. Farmers in Rwanda has a limited skills of supply chain besides that, a limited numbers of physical stores to ship directly their product from the farm to their final consumers have been a challenge. The second challenge tackles the product quality control system from the farm up to the last consumer which is also not monitored, lastly roads connecting the farm towards the main shipping roads are not paved, in raining seasons shipping turn to be problematics, and this limits the delivery period of time for the final consumer receiving his final products.

End-Consumer Barrier

A sample survey was collected through interviews where 100 persons with interest of using e-commerce from urban city, such as Kigali, Musanze, Muhanga, Rusizi and Rubavu districts. Statistics showed that only 40% were aware of e-commerce platform, only 25% trusted the e-wallet payment system linked directly to their bank account, different with mobile money payment system in used currently, and only 10% could easily trust the quality product delivered through E-commerce platform. Though numbers appeared being inadequate, continuous advocacy and encouragement would change the perspective of how this platform would be adopted, final consumers vividly express a need of such e-commerce platform implementation.

Rural Developments through E-Commerce and Agriculture Digitization in Rwanda

Since the introduction of agriculture digitization through the initiative of Agriculture Services and Digital Inclusion in Rwanda, livestock productivity increased tremendously, farmers were able to treat their livestock more precisely, provide medication on time and monitor any problem at early stage. Weather and climate adaptation was very well monitored with local small household farmers, they could easily predict what to plant, when and where without being advised by authority. Reaching the market price was no longer a barrier from them, a farmer would directly trace the market price of his products and decide directly. The e-commerce platform enables a farmer to send his product to the market without meeting the final consumer on spot, thing that assisted them saving money and time at once. Farmers has been facilitated too much protecting their livestock, increasing their productivity and reaching the market as easier as possible.

Conclusion and Recommendation

This research considered 3 most important aspects; the e-commerce, agriculture digitization and their impact in promoting rural development. Rwanda has successfully implemented all the above through different initiatives and this turned to be very positive for rural farmers. The UNFAO “Agriculture Services and Digital Inclusion in Africa” initiative has shaped how agriculture was conducted before. Ultramodern methodology e-commerce platform such as esoko, etc..; and e-WTP has been very useful towards Rwanda’s farmers. Nevertheless, lots of challenges have been addressed, the government and non-government bodies need to tackle farmer’s literacy, smart phones ownership per farmer, ICT trainings on how to manipulate new technology, lower the price of internet per farmer. Supply chain management has to be handled by providing basics training on quality monitoring. Numbers of physical stores need to be increased focusing also on paved-roads. Final consumers have to be encouraged to shift from outmoded payment model (mobile money system) to a cashless e-payment system which has to synchronize directly with the e-commerce platform and bank accounts.

The market systems analysis approach, therefore, provides a cursory but meaningful glance at the market players, the demand and supply dynamics, the current and desired level of competitiveness, supporting famers and firm strategy, structure and rivalry, as well as the regulations that shape market activity (favorable market conditions). However, for digitalization to occur, it’s impact is defined across diverse product-service markets, industry segments of both new and existing as well as infrastructure completeness such of street mapping to smooth eFulfillment, the Continuous training and awareness of e-commerce and quality control platform are highly recommended. Finally, the next researcher should focus a lot on household datasets and analyze the penetration of e-commerce, e-payment and agriculture digitization on household’s level (micro-datasets), as the above research did not go much deeper in details. The next researcher has also to investigate the possibility of rural farmer shipping their products directly to international markets without any middle agents. Last but not the least the next researcher has to consider security associated with the platform investigate how cash transactions would be executed on the platform without any suspicious of cybercrime attack. [11-17].

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15. Copyright: ©2023 Mbanzabugabo Jean Baptiste, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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